"Do you feel kind of overwhelmed by the world around you and as a result confused and paralyzed into inaction in an attempt to maintain some semblance of sanity?"

Type related? Life-related? Do you identify? Completely? A bit? What, of this description, would you change?

Occasionally I feel this way. I can relate to the confused and paralyzed into inaction part; I don't really related to the maintaining some semblance of sanity part. I can see how the first part relates to weak . The second part, not sure how its type related- weak T, maybe?

"Do you feel kind of overwhelmed by the world around you and as a result confused and paralyzed into inaction in an attempt to maintain some semblance of sanity?"

Type related? Life-related? Do you identify? Completely? A bit? What, of this description, would you change?

uh, YES I feel "kind of overwhelmed by the world around me and as a result confused and paralyzed into inaction" all the time. I don't think it makes me feel insane though. Just ineffective and at times, ridiculous. Like when I'm faced with a menu with too many choices. Like at the Cheesecake Factory.

Hmm, Idk if it's overwhelment or just....not giving a shit, apathy, or like, finding fault with everything, it's a mixed bag issue. I think it's just 'hell is other people' and having to live with other people is what bothers me the most, seeing through their social masks, the greed and lust behind eyes that think they are helping. It's really cause we're all so emotional. And if you don't understand emotions you're fucked.

Occasionally I feel this way. I can relate to the confused and paralyzed into inaction part; I don't really related to the maintaining some semblance of sanity part. I can see how the first part relates to weak . The second part, not sure how its type related- weak T, maybe?

Yah, I was thinking it seems weak in general. I guess it could also be attributed to needing your Suggestive Function

Type related? Life-related? Do you identify? Completely? A bit? What, of this description, would you change?

Helplessness is a learned thinking habit. I don't think it is type related although some types might be more vulnerable to this.

Helplessness is learned by interpreting good and bad events in a pessimistic manner.
Interpretation of the events has permanence and pervasiveness as dimensions.
Permanence relates to the time span of the effects of the event.
Pervasiveness relates to the area touched by the events.

The pessimist learns helplessness by interpreting bad events as being permanent and pervasive while looking at the good events as being temporary and contained.
The optimist learns optimism by doing the opposite.

Let's take a joke telling experience as an example:
In case of bad event (nobody laughed): pessimist thinks that he is not funny and that people will have a generally bad impression of him because of it (ruined evening)
The optimist thinks that maybe the joke itself was not so good and that this doesn't affect the rest of the areas.
In case of good event (everybody laughed): pessimist thinks that they laughed because that particularly joke was funny or maybe they were just being nice and that this has no effect on the rest of the evening, people will soon forget it.
The optimist thinks that people laughed because he is a funny person and that this will project a good disposition on the persons around him making the entire evening better.

Learning to be optimistic involves becoming aware of the explanatory style that happens inside your head and disputation of the beliefs. The ABC Change Model (Adversity, Belief, Consequences, Disputation, Energization) has been proven to work wonderfully.

Anyways... if any of you like to learn more search for Martin Selligman's book "Learned Optimism"

"What is love?"
"The total absence of fear," said the Master.
"What is it we fear?"
"Love," said the Master.

Try to think that you are failing rather than being helpless. Failing is good, failing is learning.
Get comfortable failing and the feeling of helplessness will go away.

Yes but...when it's a menial task, and you keep on having problems with it...I kind of think there's something inherently wrong with me. Specifically, I've often had problems with bureucracy of many kinds, and I seem to lack the part of brain used to deal with them. I usually just end up asking a friend to do that for me. The fact that I'm dealing with a large, diffuse entity such as the state, university, etc...doesn't help, ahah

I help people emotionally, but I don't like helping others physically. (see my low strength stat) I don't really 'prove my love often.' I am more mystical and infp fag like. oh well. I just to like to write or therapy-ize my feelings and stuff, I always did- kinda like a priest or shaman or mage. I always hated at Starr when we had to like, physically help others. I'm more of an encourager and uplifter of spirit. And I think that's the best way to help people because you rely on a safe distance. And why I supervise the ESFj's approach which I feel is too 'hands on.' They also can't blame me if things go wrong cause I just turn their soul against itself to inspire them to greatness, but the actions are up to them. =p

Yes but...when it's a menial task, and you keep on having problems with it...I kind of think there's something inherently wrong with me.

Just allow yourself the permission to be human. You can't excel at everything, some things are bound to be bad. Feel the positive, think about the qualities you have and about the fact that you have to pay a price for those qualities and that the price is your problems. Use your qualities more, delegate as much as you can in the areas you have no inclination.

Nobody should demand omnipotence from you. And if they do... just put up a happy tune and smile

"What is love?"
"The total absence of fear," said the Master.
"What is it we fear?"
"Love," said the Master.

Sigma, what about optimistic + helpless? Like, "there's a good outcome waiting for me, so all I have to do is drift down the path of least resistance until I get to it."

That description of helplessness was directed at me. It definitely rings true, but I'm also an intractable optimist. My "problem" is expecting my actions to be futile, as with the above statement.

As for the paralysis, I think, too, that it's fine for me to let other people be the movers. I keep myself intact by disengaging and just following along like a herd animal... and that would be the "semblance of sanity".

A bit of context: I was asking one of my SLI friends what they thought was lurking behind my cheery demeanour. I do agree that a lot of what I do is smiling off or outright ignoring everything sad or difficult.

Nope. I actually don't feel like that at all. I don't worry excessively about the future.

﴾ لَهُمْ دَارُ السَّلاَمِ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَهُوَ وَلِيُّهُمْ بِمَا كَانُواْ يَعْمَلُونَ ﴿"When you see an evil act you have to stop it with your hand.
If you can't, then at least speak out against it with your tongue.
If you can't, then at least you have to hate it with all your heart.
And this is the weakest of faith."